The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1887-03-03


ENGLISH BILLIARDS.
A SHY ana stupid Game That 10 OBJ
solete In America.
The Pail Max Gazette inquiries, in
connection with the bankruptcy oil
Cook, the famous billiardplayer, wheth-
er the English taste for billiards and
show games is dying out. The facts
in this case are certainly curious. Cook
is one Of the best English players. and
occupies position like that of Schaefcr
or Slosson in this country. Yet he
sworn that while tho rent of his saloon
was 81, $50 and his marker and his
waiter cost him S25 a week the gross
receipts of his place since April had
not exceeded the latter amount week
ly. He attributes his misfortune to q
decline in the popularity of tho game
Everybody knows that in this country
the popularity of billiards il steadily
increasing. There is not a billiard sa-
loon in New York of which the weekly
receipts are so small as that of the sa-
loon kept BY one of the most famous
pla efs in London, while a player of
Cooks rank could here earn a salary
greater than Cooks total receipts by
simply playing every day in one place
and thus attracting customers to it. In
q general way Englishmen are quite as
fond of games, either of skill OF chance.
as Americans are: and it seems odd
that while billiards are more and more
played in the United States they should
he less and less played in England.
The difference must be looked for
in the difference between English and
American billiards. The British con-
servatisnl which Emerson described as
"prchensility of tail'' is shown in
nothing more strikingly than in the
manner in which the English cling to
the most crude and antiquated forms of
past'me. Cricket is a game which no.
body who is duly impressed with the
shortness and uncertainty of human
life has any business with, either as a
player or spectator. 1t commonly take
three days to play out a tirst-class
match. because of the enormous
amount Of time wasted in observing the
conventionalities and traditions of the
game, besides the amount wasted in
absolute dawtlling, if indeed this be not
one of the cherished traditions. The
American people. to almost all of
whom time is of some value, show their
sense of its value by abstaining from at
tendance. in any great numbers, upon
the solemn exercises of an interna-
tiOnal match. If cricket were to be-
come popular in this country it would
have to he so transformed that an En-
glish cricketer would scarcely recog-
nize it. and this transformation might
be effected without sacrificing any of
the really admirable features of the
game. The old English game of
..rounders" is the original of baseball.
The game has been improved beyond
recogn' ton. and not the least i'm prove-
ment is the shortening of it, so that a
first-class match can now be witnessed
after business hours. The result is that
probably twenty times as many people
have attended baseball matches in this
country during the past summer as
ever in one season attended cricket
matches in England.
English billiards suffer under equal
disadvantages with cricket, though the
disadvantages are not the same. The
game is played upon vast plain of
seventy-two square feet, broken by six
apertures at the sides. This structure
requires space of at least twenty two
by sixteen feet. The breaks in the
cushion caused by the pockets preclude
the continuous use of the rail and gre IT.
ly hamper the play for pos tion which
in fully civilized countries is regarded
as the highest attainment and severest
test of skill.
1t was on such table that b lizards
We're played in this country twenty five
years ago, and all the changes that
have since been made in it have tended
to make the game more scientific and
more interesting and consequently more
popular. 1t is curious to reflect that at
that remote period American billiard
pla, ers not only played Il game in which
pockets and carrOms We're mixed, but
that the color of the ball pockcted or OF
the balls carromed upon made differ
ence in the score. These absurdities
were long ago removed from the Amer
lean game. They survive in the Eng
lish game. The standard American ia
bic IS two feet shorter and a foot mar
rover than the Engl sh table, while a
smaller size still is used very commonly
in clubs and saloons and almost univcr-
sail " in private houses. where such a
table requires about two-thir1s the room
needed for an English table. The only
advantage that can be claimed for the
English table over the American table
is that pool can be played on it. But
this is really drawback, since billiards
is an interest ny and scientific game
and pool is merel y form of riot. II
we had been as stubborn a. the Englisl,
in refusing to rat onalize billiards our
best b lizard players might be going
into bankruptcy. If the English had
followed our example billiards Nigh,
be as popular in England as they are
here. and the English PLAYERS mi ght be
cont:nding with practitioners of civil
lied billiards in Par or New York in
stead ct making dismal series of ''spot
strokes against each other.-New York